Abort73

Archive for August, 2006

A talk Neil gave us at YP last friday has really got me thinking about this issue.
One thing that really stands out in my mind of my gran was how we would be all sitting in their lounge watching the cricket and she would be shaking her head and telling the batsman that if he would just hit the ball through the gap he would score runs, or if he would just hit a few sixes South Africa would win the game. She could not seem to understand why on earth they weren’t just hitting sixes! Of course none of us could persuade her otherwise.

This is a harmless example of something we are so prone to do in everyday life. We criticize others so easily and so often we are no better than they. What an opportunity to be different – not to join in when someone is being criticized and even to add something about that person which is good?
Things like these make an impression on people – evangelism isn’t just about walking around with a Bible reading it to your friends, you can contribute in a small way which may result in something big happening!

Over the last little while I have been thinking a lot about the issues which face us as Christians living in the 21st century. About how we have adapted to the technology available and now take it for granted that we can talk to people hundreds of kilometres away at the touch of a few buttons. We have such a wealth of information available to us. Google as a search engine has around 3.083 billion web pages listed (and only around 10% of all web pages available are listed) and it is estimated that on average there are about 1 000 000 new static web pages being added the net every single day. That is a heck of a lot of information which is freely available for us to browse. However, not all of it is stuff which we should be filling our heads with and as Christian teens we need to be very careful and discerning about what we fill our minds with and the way we use the internet.

In the this post and the sequels which will follow, I plan to write about issues surrounding the internet and how I think we as Christian teens ought to live accordingly.

Well, before we look at the negatives and dangers of the internet we must acknowledge that this is a great source of information. I mean, what homework assignment can a teacher possibly give you that you cannot possibly find an answer to on the internet? Isn’t that great? The internet is possible the most useful tool a scholar can find – have you ever wondered what people did for finding answers before the internet was freely available? They would have had to traipse off to the library and spend hours pouring over books looking for the piece of info that they needed, upon which they would have to rewrite that article into their books!
What a schlep!
I’m not sure about you, but I certainly appreciate the ease with which we live life in the 21st century.

Not only is the internet useful for schoolwork, but there are many God-glorifying, edifying websites out there which we can actually use to learn about God and find answers to our questions about things written in God’s Word.
We can chat to friends, play games, read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch movies and so much more.

As Christians we cannot afford to “just do” anything, we should first think about it and put it under the microscope of the Bible to see if it lives up to the standards God has placed before us, because whether you are aware of it or not, there is stuff out there which can be really harmful to us, offensive to God, and downright illegal.

Ephesians 4:1 says: “therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called”

Our calling is to: “walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen 17:1) and so we should be more than willing to take radical action to truly live up to the name “Christian”

In the following articles I hope to discuss issues like the copyright law, Online relationships, Dangers on the internet, Managing your time etc. I don’t claim to know it all, but as a guy who spends a fair amount of time on the computer this is something which I have given a lot of thought recently and hope to share with you some of the conclusions I’ve reached.

The theme verse which I thought would be fitting for these articles is from Luke 12:48 “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required”